Not as it appears
by Vio6136
Summary: Sequel to 'Welcome to the Masquerade'. Hell is not always as it appears. Dark, vague, mentions of SasuNaru.


Title: Welcome to the Masquerade! Part Two.

Summary: Hell is not always as it appears.

Pairings: Very slightly mentioned NaruSasu - but you can count it as no pairings.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and co. I don't make money of it. I don't even make cookies of it.

Warning: Kind of vague, dark and very random.

Words: about a 1000

Author's Note: So I was supposed to finish the companion piece of 'in-control Naruto' variation for the Welcome to the Masquerade, but don't ask me where this came from. AU, probable OOC, dark. I, personally, like the ending.

Not as it appears.

It starts again.

Lights above are blinding.

They center on the big platform ahead, but it's so bright in all the dullness that he can't really see what's there.

He feels people around him shift, thrumming with barely contained energy. They seem hyper. Unstable. Mad. All of them.

He isn't sure why it makes him feel both sad and disgusted.

He is so tired already. He's been here for so long that he starts to wonder if he will ever make it at all. He wonders how much time has passed outside – he bets it wasn't more than an hour, just to make it worse – but he really has to stay focused.

Shrill, cheerful music bursts in, and confetti is getting in his eyes as he frantically looks around. The mass of people is moving with it, yelling, laughing, chanting, screaming, making just so much noise that he can practically feel his head splitting, and it's only a matter of a few seconds until he is swept by the crowd.

It's madness.

He pushes through the people – they really can't object, given their state – and he looks for the flash of blond, of blue, of just NARUTO, whatever shape or form, but he's also so scared to find him. Scared to see those mirthful blue eyes unfocused, pupils dilated, his open face slack with insanity and drive. Afraid to know that it's all gone…

He screams. Screams until his throat feels raw and his lungs burn, screams the name from his own blood, his own air, his own heartbeat, just calls for his Naruto…

He knows he has no time for that – for his knees to shake, for the starting panic attack, for his hysterics, that if he wants to find him, he has to move, just has to, but it has been so long, just so long without any hope, and he's just so desperate…

The mob is so out of it by now that his slightest weakness is going to be the death of him, oh, he knows, they would run over him and rip him to pieces, and so he really has to move RIGHT FUCKING NOW, but then he notices – oh, he notices…

Her green eyes unfocused and dull – he remembers them sparkling with joy and tears and anger; her shiny pink hair messy and half-ripped out, dirt on her face.

His white hair almost gone, mask falling off, hands and face caked with blood.

All the people that smiled at him on the street. People that went with him through the toughest times. Those he fought back to back with. Those he protected on missions. Those he considered his people.

THEY were the mob. Rabid animals. Unstable. Disgusting. Wrong.

And he really can't stop the shaking anymore, running from face to face, stumbling and bumping, eyes wide with suddenly sharp horror, and he really can't get what's going on in Naruto's head, Kami-sama…

The shock is so strong is stills him. Dark eyes are still searching for the flash of blond, but the realization's already struck, and he feels desperation swelling up in his throat, choking him, suffocating him, and he wants to scream, but his throat feels too raw and no sounds come out, but it all doesn't matter anymore.

It's the end.

He failed.

The most beautiful, most important sharingan technique, letting it's master in any mind, trapped or no, manipulating the conscious, hurting or healing.

If you know how to.

But the mind is no toy, the trapped mind is no easy trip, but it's so easy to get lost in another's trap, so easy to loose the way.

And Sasuke knows, he knows – even if he finds his Naruto, they will never get free – because shocked and scared, he lost where he came from, that small portal to the safety of the real world, and it will take forever to find, and he's sure he wouldn't last so long.

He thinks that maybe he doesn't have a choice.

The real world in the hospital room, where Naruto – unnaturally pale on the white sheets – unconscious and trapped by an unknown illusion, where all the friends peer closely to his own still form right behind the bed, looking for any sign of success. Where that sign will never come.

He can taste the failure alright.

Lights blind.

Hysterically cheerful music is almost deafening.

The mass of people shifts, thrumming with barely contained energy, breathing harshly, and their unfamiliarly familiar faces make his heart trump painfully.

And he watches again, as he knows he forever will now, drenched in despair as it unravels before him, this sick Hell, how the people he cares for are driven rabid, mindless, hysterical animals. How the only love he had is somewhere there alone among them – the thought suffocates him it's so painful, and he can't stop now, he can't, he has to find him, but he's also so scared to, but he can't save him anyway - and it hurts so much that he feels sick - because he forever _failed. _

And he doesn't know that outside in the hospital real Naruto opens his eyes – a little red underneath the blue, but everyone's too happy to notice small things like that. He acts a bit differently than before, smirks more than grins nowadays, but it's okay after all that he went through.

He will never know now that no one really understood the cause of his death, and there were no Uchihas alive left to give a clue. He will never know that his own funeral was small, quick and heart-felt, and that tearful Naruto hid a malicious grin under the handkerchief.

And mysterious deaths that took away Tsunade, Kakashi, Sakura, every other bright shinobi one by one – well, death is no stranger to shinobis, and it was way too late when they found out the pattern.

And after Jiraya's death there really was no one to notice that the Kyuubi's seal was broken through.

No one will ever get a chance to understand that in revenge demons take more than just an eye for an eye, but it doesn't really matter since they all will pay the price anyway.

The End.

Shit, that turned out much darker and still wrong, lol. I guess, this story just doesn't call for a manipulative Naruto, but Kyuubi's revenge is a nice theme, too. If you recall from the first part fic what Naruto sold his soul for – it's all the nicer.


End file.
